Get your pot and gloves ready...

Yes, silk dupioni can be dyed, like any other silk (or natural
fiber)

One thing to note, is that many dupioni fabrics are cross-dyed (erk..
head still fuzzy... maybe thats not the right word) ... meaning that
the weft is one colour, and the warp is another. For instance, to
make SILVER silk, you can use a black warp, and a grey weft, and the
resulting fabric when moved in the hand will look silver. Likewise,
green one direction, blue in the other, and the result will be green
under one light, blue under another, and blue-green under a flat
light.
That brings the problem to dying... if the fabric is cross-dyed... of
what colour you might end up with. For instance.. if the fabric is
the silver as mentioned before.. the grey might take your... (ex:)
green dye, but then the black will stay black - resulting in a darker
green then you might have imagined. If its not cross-dyed, then no
worries.

If the darkness/depth/etc of the colour you get is VERY important...
(" I NEED to have this green match as closely as possible the green
of the trim") then you can dye in stages, dye once, still too light,
dye again, still too light, dye again... ahhh.. just right....

(suddenly feels like a sick goldilocks)

You ~should~ use dyes meant for silks - and often low quality
dupioni's are much looser weave then higher cost ones (hence handle
with a bit of care.. though bridal use is probably pretty good
fabric), but you CAN use normal "supermarket" dyes too. Test a scrap
if its important to you to get the ~right~ colour. I've used proper
dyes (Procion..? I cant remember the name) for silk, and had great,
intense results on gently off-white silk. I have also used Rit on
silk, and got slightly less intense results, though the techniques
used and fabrics will also have an effect on the results.

You will want to keep all bleach and fabric lighteners/colour
removers from the silk - but for a bridesmaid dress its likely pretty
pale and should dye darker fairly well. You should also make sure
that the areas you want to use dont have any stains on them (which
wont take dye properly) and probably a good idea to wash the fabric
before dying - particularly if it hasnt been washed before.

You can also dye-to-match your trims at the same time, though they
wont really ~MATCH~ - depending on the colour they already are, the
fiber content, etc. A lot of the trim on the garments are tone-on-
tone, so this might be good way to get a matching colour, rather
then try to dye to match something existing. Again, lighter colours
will dye closer then darker ones, and synthetics will not dye.

- Dawn
(still sick.. hope that all made sence...)

> Thanks for the fabric suggestions everyone! Can duponi silk be
dyed? If so,
> I may have finally come up with a use for a slightly used
bridesmaid dress
> (certainly enough fabric for a shirt!)